The Little Cypress Mauriceville Bears and the Orangefield Bobcats are area champs after winning their opening and second round games in the state basketball playoffs. Both the Bears and the Bobcats advanced to the third round of the post season.

Little Cypress Mauriceville got a monster game from Ben Elliott on Friday, February 24, to defeat Bullard 63-60. Elliott scored a fantastic 40 points in the win for the Bears.

Orangefield used a balanced attack to defeat Crockett 62-52 on Friday, February 24. Jaden Scales was the Bobcats high scorer with 21 points as Pete Ragusa tallied 15 and Brayden Parker added 14. Zane Wrinkle had a good night with 10 rebounds and 5 points.

On Tuesday, February 21, the Bears beat the Huffman Hargrave Falcons 58-31, and the Bobcats blasted the Hemphill Hornets 70-49.

LCM had three Bears score in double figures and two of them had double doubles. Ben Elliott had 16 points with 10 rebounds while Da'Marion Morris tallied 14 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, and handed out 6 assists. Alantheon Winn was second high scorer for LCM with 15 points.

Bear Head Coach Brad Jeffcoat was full of praise for his players and his assistant coaches after the victory. "Our kids were very locked in defensively tonight and really limited good shots for Huffman. Coach Daspit and Coach Smith did a fantastic job getting the Bears ready for Huffman and it paid off," Jeffcoat responded.

Orangefield's Jaden Scales led the Bobcats in scoring with 25 points as the won their bi-district game with Hemphill and followed that up with 21 points to lead the Bobcats over Crockett

The Bears were patient on offense and it paid off for them. Jeffcoat elaborated, "We took care of the basketball ball and took good shots, and when you take good shots you usually get good results. I'm proud of how our kids showed up today. We played with lots of emotion, but were still very focused and sharp."

Orangefield was led by Jaden Scales with 25 points and Pete Ragusa was right behind him with 24 points. Zane Wrinkle tossed in 11 points for the Bobcats. Cameron Dischler and Koen Maddox were the top Bobcat rebounders with 6 boards apiece.

Orangefield (28-8) played its third round game against Hitchcock the last day of February at Barbers Hill. Little Cypress Mauriceville (26-11) faced Center in its third round game.